One year ago today: January 10, 2022, my partnership rulebook.
Five years ago today: January 10, 2018, somebody stole it.
Nine years ago today: January 10, 2014, he played checkers.
Random years ago today: January 10, 2004, the NG format.
One of the Diamond & Silk ladies died this morning. I confess to never having watched an entire episode, they moved too slow and the coverage was shallow. Maybe I’d rather giggle than watch people giggle, but of course the big issue is was she jabbed? Issue? Yes, the leftoids who insist nobody in their camp died from the jab so asking them is “inappropriate”, but they are all about how this lady died from, specifically, the Trump jab. This is my mood this morning, no explanation.
Music. I’ve managed to shoe-horn in my famous (figuratively speaking) four-octave walkdown to “Rhinestone Cowboy”. It’s an okay song, patched together in sections at the studio. There are two spots of half-dropped notes but, like CCR, that is the way they did things back then when okay was good enough. As for the countless new picks I now have, I throw the frayed ones away after each set. The cheapest, fraying-est ones come from those Xfinity cards that clutter up your mailbox. There may yet come a time I race out to get such things.
I don’t much distinguish between nut-cases and religious fanatics. There are private places for these people to do their numbers and main street isn’t one of them. Joe Biden is now trying to ban gas stoves. Some Russian states have okayed the piracy of digital artworks if it originated in non-friendly countries. England screwed up their second independent attempt to launch a satellite. China announces a reusable spacecraft. Europe continues to lean on American advertising that’s based on surveillance.
Heard of DoNotPay? That’s the A.I. “lawbot” that sports a 64% success rate defending people against parking tickets. It works well because most parking tickets are designed to collect revenue for City Hall and have little to do with parking enforcement. They rely on most people just paying the fine. Well, it seems the lawbot is now slated for traffic court. This could be interesting.
Later, I got back to learn more of “Blue On Black”, a tune chosen by the new guy. I’ve listened to it a few times and really don’t like it. The bass line is uninspired and plainly written by a guitar player. The first few bars of the chorus are catchy but it quickly drops back to boring. Fortunately, there is an accurate version on Songsterr and the pattern repeats itself so I only have to memorize it once. Memorize? Yep, I’ll never listen to that song often enough to like it and it is too late in the rock era for any originality.
Forty-five minutes later I can fake it well enough except for the guitar take-offs behind the lead break. I’ll leave those until I’m certain we are going to do that song. Mike has not responded in a couple days, so either he’s really sick or he’s following up some other option. I’m not too worried, I heard him play and I’m handily his best chance of getting into a band around here.
I’m watching a documentary on the European rail system. I see I was wrong considering it a cheap and modern way to see Europe. I think the video may eventually say they solved the many problems but if it still costs three times more than air travel, the only advantage to me is if you could sleep on the train. France spent millions on a “high speed” line that took forty minutes off a three and a half hour trip, duh.
Yamaha recording consoles.
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Another three hours on banking, but that ones a quandary. Is it good or bad when you have to spend so much time at it. I suppose that pivots on whether you are paying debts or investing. I passed two gas stations with the pumps closed. Hopefully it is not the hassle of another contrived gas crisis. In the end I drove to Mulberry. The tape recorder (digital) has an cheap speaker, but quite an okay sound if you put it through the computer. Let’s see what the van recorded today.
On the home leg, I heard a radio program from a woman talking about marathon running. She talked about winning in a way that related to me as bass playing. She paralleled my bass technique while describing running. Amazing. For example, she described a technique I use with new bands. Hold back, play only what you need to keep pace. Let somebody else take the lead spot, he’ll be figuratively looking over his shoulder most of the event. Right there you see my wry smile. Hold back until you see just enough space ahead to both see the finish line in case you need to pour on the energy. Quite the analogy.
She went on to make a huge differentiation where I don’t care either way. I know for most people there is little common ground between winning individually or as a team. Yet myself, I simply prefer to win and the challenge is even finding the right team. Hence it seems like I would want to solo—yet I’ve spent a lifetime looking for team people. Those who know me might say, ah, but why my animosity toward lead players? I can easily explain that.
Just now I described the finish line, but what is that musically? It’s when some other member of the band is not a team player and tries to hog the spotlight. That’s my signal to rally and it is far from entirely self-centered. Because I’ll tell you why. If it was ego, I would not wait for the other guy to act first. Next, and this is important, there are two scenarios where somebody can try to solo out of turn. The first is when they deserve it, the other is when they don’t. People like the Hippie, Billie-Bill, and anybody I’ve met in Miami-Dade or Polk don’t.
What do they have in common? Personality-wise not much, but musically all of them can solo and sadly they try to keep that going when in a band. Most of the time it works, but they rarely keep a band long. Then I come along and the band perseveres, but only at the expense of them having to share the limelight. Most of them cannot deal with that. It was quite the radio program.
ADDENDUM
Here’s the top answers to an on-line question of the fastest way calm down an angry woman:
Mention she sounds like her mother.
Put her dad on the speaker phone
Say, “My ex wasn’t that crazy.”
John Wayne knows.
Point out her arms wobble when she smacks you.
Ask if she’s pregnant.
Tell her anger causes wrinkles.
“I knew I should have married your sister.”
Chloroform
